A lethal cat-and-mouse struggle in the skies over Baghdad implicates US as much as Iraqi forces in the errant missile strikes that killed almost 80 civilian shoppers in suburban markets in Baghdad last week.

Both sides were quick to blame the other for the death of 17 non-combatants at the Al Shaab marketplace last Wednesday and, 48 hours later, the death of 62 people in the predominantly Shiite shantytown of Al Shualla.

As the war progresses, the risk of death or injury to civilians has risen dramatically - first by the shrapnel and debris from cruise and Tomahawk missile strikes, and the fall of the Iraqi anti-aircraft fire they provoked; then the errant missiles, and, after a suicide attack that killed four US soldiers on Saturday, the US shoot-to-kill policy for even mildly suspect Iraqi citizens.

On any given day now, hundreds of cruise and Tomahawk missiles cut through the city skies - on Monday night they were flying in four different directions around the press hotels on the banks of the Tigris. Many thousands of rounds of Iraqi anti-aircraft fire that go up, must come down, and an unknown number of Iraqi surface-to-air missiles are fired from Baghdad. Iraqi authorities say that 677 civilians have died and more than 5000 have been injured since the war began.

Reporters who were allowed to visit the marketplaces several hours after the blasts came away puzzled - they expected the major structural damage that a powerful cruise or Tomahawk warhead might cause.");document.write("

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Instead they found high casualty figures but surprisingly small impact craters and minimal structural damage to buildings in each area.

And while they came away listening to US denials that these might have been American strikes, they heard claims from within the Pentagon that errant Iraqi surface-to-air missiles were a more likely cause of the blasts, and allegations from within the exiled Iraqi community that Saddam Hussein was capable of attacking his own people and blaming the carnage on the US. The latter claim angers Iraqi officials, who say the US bombing campaign is the only wrongdoing warranting examination.

Damage at the blast scenes is consistent with the small, high-speed missiles used by the US to strike against Iraqi air-defence radars and mobile missile launchers. They are known as HARMs - high-speed anti-radiation missiles, and they cost $US284,000 ($A470,000) each. In a confused coalition response to the Al Shaab strike, the US initially denied that it had aircraft in the area, and Downing Street accused Iraqi officials of "sanitising" the area before allowing foreign journalists in lest they conclude that Iraqi missiles had caused the tragedy.

But later, the US said that it did have aircraft over Baghdad, hunting nine mobile missile units, and Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks said that there had been an Iraqi missile battery in the neighbourhood, suggesting it may have been an outgoing Iraqi shot that landed in the marketplace - rather than an incoming US one.

But the American use of HARMs - with the knowledge of the Iraqi strategy for dealing with them - could make it difficult for the Pentagon to absolve itself of some responsibility for the marketplace deaths.

Material published by the maker of HARMs, Raytheon, said that the missiles were first used in combat against Libya in 1986, and in 1991, during Desert Storm, more than 2000 HARMS all but silenced the Iraqi radar threat.

"HARM was acknowledged as being the combat planners' weapon of choice in the suppression of enemy air defence radars," it said.

Iraqi defence officials reportedly claimed early in 2000 that they could render HARMs impotent, thereby shielding their air-defence system, rated as one of the most dense in the world, from American attacks.

The HARM is a semi-guided weapon - it seeks its radar target only while the radar is active. Adopting a practice used to good effect by the Serbians during Operation Allied Force in Yugoslavia in 1999, the Iraqis have opted to keep their radar switched off for much of the time.

When the radars are turned on, a HARM can be launched at them, homing in on the radar's signal.

But if the radar is switched off after the missile is launched, the HARM can go out of control, losing its ability to steer accurately to the target.

Also, when US pilots establish that a radar has locked on their aircraft, they are required to respond in an instant. This gives the crew little time to think about the precise location within the city of the radar that has a fix on them.

The HARM's 68-kilogram warhead is designed to fragment into tiny pieces to tear apart radar dishes and other fragile electronic equipment. That is not inconsistent with the effect on the Baghdad marketplaces - frail human bodies were torn apart, and buildings and other structures were charred and their contents scattered, but they were not demolished.

At the time, General Brooks told reporters: "We did have an air mission that attacked some targets, not in that area but in another area, and they did encounter some surface-to-air missile fire."

Despite US claims that it would take some time, and possibly not until the US-led forces controlled Baghdad before an investigation could be carried out, The Age was told that it would be a relatively simple process to establish if HARMs were involved. It needed only to establish the time that any HARMs were fired and test it against the time of the marketplace strikes - these missiles take only seconds to arrive at their target.